


Two Worlds

by Turtle_ier



Series: Something Else is Out There [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Fantasy elements, Fear of Death, Happy Ending, Horror Elements, M/M, Minecraft, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Part 1, Strangers to Lovers, Survival, Survival Horror, Suspense, Wilderness Survival, author used to write horror and cant help herself, realistic minecraft au, sap nap isn't in it until like the last chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26217577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtle_ier/pseuds/Turtle_ier
Summary: George appeared in a new world alone, and in one like one he had never seen before. For one it was an autumnal forest, one getting colder and darker by the day in the decline into winter. Survival wasn't easy at the best of times, but what struck him as strange wasn't the setting, it was the stranger who developed a habit of following him.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Something Else is Out There [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1969750
Comments: 29
Kudos: 446





	1. Introduction: A Cold Open

“It’s getting dark,” Dream said, huffing like he had run a marathon in the amount of time that it had taken George to tie together a few sticks. 

George grit his teeth, wishing, not for the first time, that he was sensible enough to prepare for all weathers like he had been told. His arms were prickling with goosebumps, the hairs standing on end to try and create some sort of insulation between his skin and the air, but with little affect. To make matters worse, he could already feel that his feet were wet from stumbling in the water earlier, which meant an even tighter timeframe than they already had.

“Yeah,” George said, and it was an achievement that he didn't snap the words, “Did you find-?”

“No. Nothing is around for miles, that I could see.”

Dream’s mask was in the way of his eyes, so George couldn't see what he was thinking, but his voice was tight, the cold air ripping holes in his lungs and causing his wheeze to get worse. George didn't know if Dream was suffering as badly as he himself was, but he was hardly wearing cold weather gear either. 

“What direction?” he asked, looking around. Other than the hill Dream had climbed and the tree stump George had found, there was nothing that marked the landscape. Only the fresh, undisturbed expanse of snow that made up their new world. He couldn't even see any caves, or a river, or another tree. Just snow and sky, which according to Dream, went on forever. 

“Pick one,” Dream said, seeing again if he could salvage any of the stump. His fingers were almost blue from the cold. 

George looked around again for something - anything - out of pure desperation. By the looks of it, they had less than an hour until nightfall. 

“South,” he said, and holding the bundle of sticks with both hands, he tumbled through the snow in a mockery of running. Dream ditched the idea of salvaging the stump and went after him, his longer legs making better progress, which still didn't amount to much.

The snow came up to their knees, soaking through their trousers and seeping through to their flesh and chilling their legs to the bone. George was just thankful that it was sunny instead of clouded over or snowing, even if that meant it would be colder later. Getting started when the weather was awful basically guaranteed failure, although, he wasn't exactly holding out the most hope for their current situation either. Dream paused to catch his breath and to let George reach him again, but nothing had changed.

The landscape was still an inhospitable white, hostile without monsters, deadly without weapons, and the snow towards the horizon was glowing yellow from the setting sun. 

“Half an hour?” George hazarded a guess.

“Less,” Dream said, “let’s say less.” 

“Igloo?”

“Do you have a shovel?”

“Uhm, dirt house?”

“Ground is frozen solid.”

“Cave?”

“Where?” 

George heaved a breath. Hopelessness didn't suit Dream at the best of times, but now, all it did was make George wish that they were already dead. His hands were stiff, becoming the same temperature as the landscape at a faster rate than he realised, and his wet trouser legs were freezing to the snow. As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting gold and purple flames across the sky, George looked at Dream and wished he had said something sooner. 


	2. Chapter one: He Changes with the Leaves

The first thing he noticed, waking up that morning, was that a cold and steady drizzle was coming from above him and that the sound of it hitting leaves was the only thing he could hear. When George opened his eyes, however, he realised something else.

For the first time in any - no, all - of the worlds he had entered and left, this one had an autumnal forest, with hues of bright red, rusty orange, and vibrant yellows creating a patchwork canopy above him. Toadstools were scattered around him in a wide circle, only interrupted by a tree stump and a small puddle, and through the leaves he could make out an angry-looking dark grey sky. It wasn't often that George woke up somewhere new, these days. 

It was even more unusual to wake up alone.

“Sapnap?” He called, moving to a sitting position. He could feel where the wet ground had seeped into the back of his shirt, and not for the first time, he cursed himself for never wearing a jacket. “Sapnap? Anyone?” 

The forest didn't respond to him, but then again he hadn't expected it to, but it was unnerving not hearing anyone else reply. The rain didn't get any heavier, which was a small blessing in and of itself, but George couldn't shake the feeling of something being wrong. 

George listened for a long moment, just taking in the sounds of leaves and rustling branches, but he didn’t hear any of the usual sounds of birds or insects, and there was no indication of a stream nearby. The air smelt fresh and undisturbed in the rain, without any of the lingering smoke that a fire would bring, but instead just fresh grass, maybe some flowers, and not a lot else. It was awfully peaceful, considering the chaos he usually woke up to.

He didn't dwell on it, though, instead leaving the ring of mushrooms to try and find an old, brittle tree to put together a shoddy axe. Usually he would dig straight down to find some stone, but the eerie feeling didn't leave him, so he settled instead on gathering some pebbles or flint to make tools with. He didn't like the idea of leaving his back exposed to whatever was making him feel uncomfortable. It might have been nothing, but he had learnt that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Using a single piece of flint he split a stick part of the way down, far enough to jam the fat end of the flint in and have some wood left over at the top. He then used a long piece of root from some-sort of yellow-flowering plant to tie the top, giving him a very poor axe to chop down a dead tree. Inspecting his work, he shrugged in a ‘good enough’ sort of way, and went onwards in the woods to try and find anything useful. The woods were quiet enough for him to feel like his own breathing was intrusive, and as he was looking around for a moment to further assess his situation, the rustling of a pile of leaves interrupted his train of thought.

“Hello?” He tried again, looking through his glasses at the autumnal world surrounding him, but just when he thought it was a loss, something out of the corner of his eye shifted. He twisted his head towards the movement and then jolted back. 

A mask, surrounded by a messy halo of yellow hair, smiled back at him. The person (person?) who it belonged to didn't seem like they were actually smiling behind the mask, however, as they were crouching behind a tree with the lower half of their body hidden by a fallen log, watching him intensely. As soon as George saw them, their hand disappeared from the tree, slithering back towards them like they expected George to try and cut it off. 

Quietly, and like they hadn't spoken much before (or at all), they mimicked George in their funny accent and without a doubt masculine voice.

“Hello?”

The stranger’s voice was soft but clear, with an accent that George could recognise but not quite place, and the mouth on their mask didn't move as they said it. It made sense that the mask didn't move, but the voice wasn't muffled either, as if it was part of their face rather than an extension of what they wore. George blinked behind his glasses, frowning and sputtering a little as he tried to make sense of the situation but before he could try to do anything more, the person in the mask shied away and withdrew on themselves, their hair covering the top of their mask as they turned their back on him. 

“Wait!” George shouted, but the person was gone - showing their yellow-green back to George before disappearing among the leaves and mishmash of colours. 

So he was left alone in the rain, a shoddy axe in hand, thinking about the person in the autumnal woods. 

George smacked the side of the tree with as much force as he could muster, his arms already burning from the effort he’d put in so far, but didn’t reap any of the rewards from it yet. His axe, which was a half-blunt thing which resembled more of a door stop than anything else, threatened to slip out of his grasp at any moment, which would chip its stone head beyond repair. 

Nearby, as steady as someone looking down the sights of their crossbow, the mask was sticking out of a yellowing bush.

George couldn’t see the person inside, who was inevitably there, but the prickly feeling of their eyes on his neck wouldn’t leave him alone. He turned, looking directly at the mask and made a point of baring his teeth at it. The mask, the only visible part of the stranger as they unsuccessfully hid, didn't move. 

Huffing to himself, George shuffled around the tree so that he could more clearly see the masked stranger, and he resumed chopping the tree. 

The axe wasn't as sharp as the one he used to have in the old world, and he had to readjust his grip again and again to hit the tree at the right angle. Despite this, struggling with a live tree was easier than travelling an unknown distance to try and find another dead one. It was a realisation which had struck George the last time he went looking - although it was becoming colder with each passing day, and the leaves falling like rain in each burst of wind, there were not many dead trees at all. He’d been in evergreen forests with more dead and leafless trees in autumn. 

He glanced up again to make sure that the mask was still there, and sighed deeply at the sight of it. Although, thinking about it, George wasn't sure if being there was a good thing or not. On the one hand, seeing the ‘enemy’ (George still wasn't certain if they were friend or foe) was much better than not knowing where they were, but on the other hand, the mask was bloody creepy.

“Are you just going to stare?” George asked the mask. 

It didn't move.

“Do you at least like what you see?” He tried again, wondering if humour would get to it, and then if it knew that the question was supposed to be humourous.

The mask said nothing.

When he was in the other world, when he was with Sapnap constantly jabbering on and Bad whining, and Skeppy making bold statements, and Techno muttering, and Wilbur, and Tubbo and Tommy and Phil and Zelk and Finn and Fundy and-- 

And he just missed talking to someone, anyone, who could, would, respond. When he was in the old world there was nothing but talking, and the absence of it was just… eerie.

“Not much for conversation,” he grumbled, picking up some wood chips and bark to use as kindling, “not much for anything.” 

George tilted his axe to the angle that he found worked best, which given the state of the axe’s head wasn't saying much, and brought his arms back to swing, but just as he did, a flicker of moment out the corner of his eye turned his blood to ice. 

He twisted mid-swing and cried out in pain. Left hand clutching the wrist of his right, he let the now broken axe fall to the floor in a slump, twisting around to look fully to where the movement was. Nothing had changed, the mask still looked at him, and through the hammering of his heart in his chest he found it in him to be glad that it hadn't been the thing that moved. 

He blinked behind his glasses, and keeping an eye on the mask he pulled his hands up to where he could see them, with the left still covering the wrist of his right. What must have happened, he realised, was when he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye he turned and let go of the axe with his left hand, holding onto it with his right hand as it was still moving, and as the head of the axe impacted the tree, at totally the wrong angle, it twisted his wrist. He sniffed, and after a moment, glanced at the hand he cradled in his lap. 

No noticeable damage. It might swell, he supposed, but thankfully it just felt sore. 

He looked up at the mask in the yellow bush again and realised that the mask was slightly tilted to one side, dislodged when whatever it was moved the bush. 

Using his left hand to help stand, George gripped the now broken axe in his good hand and took a step closer to the mask. He stopped, went from one foot to the other in a moment of uncertainty, and used one of the chips in the axe head to lift the mask. 

Nothing was behind it, just more of the yellowing bush and no face. 

Though the thought of something unknown wandering around without its face didn't do anything to make him feel better. 

He flipped the mask over, and as he had expected, the other side revealed a thin layer of mesh which George could just about see out of, which would be clearer if he pressed it closer to his face. It had some cotton padding to stop its wooden frame from sitting directly against skin (if they had skin, which was a disturbing thing to consider) and a piece of black ribbon to tie around the back of their head. He ran his thumb over the ribbon, thinking back on Sapnap’s headband and how it always used to get crusty if he sweated into it for long enough, but the one on the mask was soft - almost new, like the stranger that wore it never sweated at all. 

He turned it over again to look at its face.

The markings were difficult to decipher when he first saw them across the clearing in the rain, but up close his suspicions were confirmed. It was a smile, unchanging, and painted onto the wood and stitched over the eye-holes. In some areas of the mask the paint looked newer, being a distinctly brighter white than the rest of it. He ran the pad of his finger over it and looked at it. 

Chalk paint, then, or perhaps a limestone wash. The fact that it wasn't proper dye explained the discolouration, at least. 

So, a few things realised, and a few more questions too. They didn't have access to dye or paint, they had two eyes, and needed to protect their face from the wood of the mask using padding. They were not shy enough to wear it all the time, otherwise they wouldn't have left it behind. The groove in the back of the mask suggested a nose, too. 

Maybe they were human after all.

Then again, maybe not. 

But the questions weighed on his mind in a way the realisations didn’t. Why would they leave it behind? Why was the ribbon new, and where did they get it from? why were they following him around, and why did they want to make George feel like he was being watched?

George looked around the clearing, turning back to the half-chopped tree and looking there too, before clutching the axe a little tighter in his left hand, holding the mask as best he could in his still stinging right one, and wandered off in the direction of his temporary shelter. He needed some time away from prying eyes, and some time out of the cold, too.

What small blessing George found in this new world of his was that there was already somewhere to stay on his first night - an abandoned village, with cobwebs in every corner and a monster in what used to be the church - and he laid claim to the library there since. It wasn't comfortable at first, but after he took the time to patch the holes in the roof and found a bed in the tanner’s hut he was at least a little pleased. 

He took some effort to make it look less like an abandoned building, which he was perhaps prouder of than he should have been, especially since the poorly clogged holes in the roof never hesitated to drip cold water down his neck at every opportune moment. It was basically his first attempt at making a house a home by himself. Even if he added ‘for now’ onto the end of the word ‘home’. He still needed to find his way back to ‘home that was before here’, after all. 

As it stood, George had raided the blacksmith’s for the measly sixteen iron-nuggets, two pieces of coal and one obsidian brick and made a couple of lanterns for the single room that made up his house. He put a tower of chests on one side, blocking one of the broken windows in a vague attempt to stop the draft until he could fix it properly, and placed the crafting table directly opposite of the door and in the middle of the far wall. The axe, which was basically beyond repair at this point, leant against the doorway. 

He sat on the edge of the bed that he stole from the other house and took care to sharpen his flint into a pickaxe head, dragging a whetstone he found against the piece to sharpen it into the ideal shape. He had little else to do before he went to bed, seeing as it was getting late already, and he waited patiently and did his work as the sky outside the unbroken went from mauve to violet and then to navy. The noise of the whetstone against the flint came in regular, short bursts, his hands steady and his eyes focused. He was safe, he had assured himself when he first sat down to begin making the pickaxe, he was inside and the stranger wouldn't be making any bold movements without their mask. 

He had felt a bit weird, taking the mask with him when it was left behind on that bush earlier that day, but he didn't know if it was better leaving it behind. On the one hand, they might be upset that he took it, but on the other, it gave him a temporary respite from them appearing everywhere he went. He glanced up to where he had left it on the crafting table, facing towards the chests on the far wall, and caught sight of the edge of it. Knowing that it was there, that the person with no face wasn't, didn't exactly fill him with confidence either. What if they were angry he took it? What if they wanted it back? 

But until he got some iron he couldn't make a decent sword, and to get iron he needed a pickaxe, which meant sticking around the house with the mask for a little bit longer, just sharpening the tool. 

He scraped, and scraped, and scraped. 

Then, the oddest thing happened, so unexpected that at first George didn't even realise it had happened at all. A knock to the front door, so gentle and quiet that it might have just been a stray breeze blustering it back and forth against the frame. He didn't look up, too focused on the scrape, scrape, scrape and the repetitive action of sharpening, but the knock sounded again, slightly louder, like whatever was outside wanted to come in quite badly. 

He stilled his hands. The throb in his right wrist was still there, and in the now silence he could only focus on that and the rustle of the trees outside. 

“Hello?” he almost whispered, like he was checking his voice before saying it again, louder. “Hello?”

Stomach sinking, eyes going wide, the horrific feeling of dread. The door handle tilted down. It sprung back up. The knocking noise came again. Louder. Whoever was outside wanted to come in, regardless of George’s opinion on the matter.

George swallowed. There was no need to panic, he thought to himself, no need at all. It was just a villager, despite the whole town being abandoned when he stumbled across it. No need to worry at all. As the knocking sound came again, George put down the odd-shaped piece of flint and the whetstone and without a care for his filthy hands he pushed himself up from the bed. He brushed his feet over the floor as he moved forwards, taking care to avoid the squeaky floorboards and lifting the broken axe with so much care that it almost made up for all the clumsiness in his past life. Finally, he reached the door. It was untraditional to make windows in a spruce door, and the one to his house was no different. The handle was sitting, innocently and unopened against the wood. The knocking sound didn't come again as George waited behind it, wishing he could see through walls, but just as he reached for the handle the door rattled with force. 

He took a step back. The floor creaked. He grabbed the handle to the door and lurched it inwards. 

No one was there, the trees rustled in the wind, and somewhere out there in the darkness he could see the light of a fire. He could smell it too, mixing with the mustiness of the forest like a perfume on someone who was unwashed. Blinking, George pulled off his glasses and, yep, the fire was still there. 

It took a moment before the wind and the noise of rustling trees reached him, and with a heart-hammering movement he slammed the door, leaning against it with his whole weight as he struggled to breathe. 

There were eyes in the darkness. 

That night, when he eventually fell into a restless, all-consuming sleep, he dreamt of the stranger’s face and what they might look like. He had only heard them speak once, but the voice lingered with him.

“Hello?” the voice said in a mockery of his own, “Hello? Hello?”

When he woke up the next morning to bright orange sunlight streaming through the unbroken window and a chill in the air, he sighed with deep relief until he looked across the house. The door was open. The mask was gone. 

The stranger appeared again the next day, looking slightly less put-together and holding a scorched looking tree branch in one hand like a weapon. They looked at George the same way someone would look at a wild animal, and the realisation made him uncomfortable when he couldn't tell if he was more of a wolf or a deer in the stranger’s eyes. He sincerely hoped that whatever the stranger saw him as, they were willing to leave him alone. 

George tried not to think about the other person who was, without a doubt in his mind, following him. 

George suspected that usually the person in the forest was more careful, and took their time walking around the twigs and piles of fallen leaves, rather than straight through them, and they would usually try to stay out of sight, lingering in the shadows regardless of how bright it was outside. 

However, the person’s mask sometimes caught the light, which drew George away from the task at hand without fail, his eyes landing on their hidden face. They didn't say anything else, but they didn't shy away after being seen either. They just stood there and stared until George looked away, when they would disappear as if they never existed at all. 

He didn't say anything either, usually, since he knew that the other wouldn’t talk, but he wished he could bring himself to try. The silence of being ignored was more painful than the uncomfortable quiet of before.

“ _Have you ever read ‘Peter Pan’?”_ George might have asked, “ _You’d like it. You remind me of Peter’s shadow.”_

“ _Do you know anyone else?_ ” He thought to say, “ _Are they better at talking than you are?”_

Later, when he caught a glimpse of their hair he thought it might be getting darker, like it was slightly damp or had been dyed with tinted water. If it wasn't for his revelation with the mask he might have actually considered dye, but it was difficult to tell the difference as the only sign through his eyes was the shade. If he could tell, then he’d be adamant that his hair was turning a coppery colour and that his hoodie was less green and was becoming more yellow. 

George was at least ninety percent certain that they were male, though, even if his only reasoning was based on catching the other off guard that morning after going out of his house. The stranger vanished even quicker than usual that time. 

“What are you doing?” George asked at one point, but when it came to the two options - disappearing or staring - they shied away again, moving without a word or noise into the woods. 

They were always careful when leaving, even more so than usual, like an animal with their tail between their legs. 

He was working in one of the overgrown potato plantations near to the church when he saw the stranger go into one of the abandoned houses beside the butcher’s hut, and a minute or so later, he left again empty handed. They walked behind the house and into the underbrush, going from visible, to hard to see, and then to unidentifiable from the rest of the woods. George watched them closely as they left before sighing and turning back to his work. At least they hadn't left their mask behind again. He was getting sick of the feeling of being watched. 

“Weirdo,” George muttered as he pulled up a particularly stubborn weed.

But then a thought stopped him in his tracks. 

He stood and wiped the mud from his hands onto his trousers before making his way over to the abandoned house that the stranger had just left. The walk was short, and the whole while he made sure to keep an eye out for the stranger in case they didn’t like him coming close to ‘their’ area of the village. Up until that point, he hadn’t really explored the place completely. He reached the door, and praying that it didn’t squeak, he nudged it open. 

It didn't look… lived in, per say, but there were some homely qualities to the place - like it was somewhere that the stranger would occasionally crash in rather than a permanent home. The window was broken, but there was no glass on the floor and the door still swung open freely, and the blue bed in the corner was unmade but not dirty. The most noticeable thing, however, was the collection of golden stones beside the bed, heaped in a bag and shining slightly in the sun. It wasn't gold, he noted upon closer inspection, but rather something that felt like stone or glass with a golden fluid trapped inside, but even then it might not have been a fluid at all. To an untrained eye like George’s, it was more like sand. 

“Huh,” George said to himself, just as the light spilling in from behind him disappeared. 

“Huh,” a voice mimicked. 

George swung around and his right fist made contact with something made of wood. 

“Fuck,” he gasped, stumbling away from whatever he hit. His back hit something solid and he slid down to the floor, his left hand grasping the covers of the bed and rucking them up. The stranger was in a crumpled heap in the doorway, cradling the cheek of their mask with one hand, and their long legs kicked out over the threshold. 

The stranger didn't get up immediately, and George found himself too stunned to do much of anything either, too much shock coursing through him in waves and pain throbbing in his hand after hitting the stranger. They adjusted their smiling mask, but caught themself before they could reveal too much, and they turned directly to George with their unseeing eyes. 

“Who are you?” George asked with as much bravery as he could muster, but the words didn't have the same effect that they had on the stranger before, and they didn't move. 

They just looked at him, half in the doorway and blocking part of the setting sun. Their mask kept smiling. Time moved on, and he felt a bead of cold sweat roll down the back of his neck. 

“Who are you?” George demanded now, and used his left hand to pull himself upwards slightly. The only other way out was through the broken window, but the stranger knew where he lived. He couldn’t run when there was nowhere to go. 

The stranger made a noise, meek like a dying animal and quiet as a rustling page. George scowled at them, his heart still beating rapidly but no longer in the fight-or-flight mode that he had been in before, and he opened his mouth to say something again.

“Dream.”

His voice died in his throat. 

“Dream?”

Their voice was soft, slightly scratchy from disuse, and as George had noticed when he first arrived here, was deeper than his own. While he was damn near certain that the stranger was male, their mask and otherwise genderless appearance made it feel weird to refer to them as anything other than ‘they’, given their distinct lack of features leaning in any sort of direction. They closed in slightly under George’s stare, curling their legs up to their chest and holding their arms directly to their sides. As the stranger, _Dream_ , moved their hands down, however, George noticed the knife. 

“That’s a knife,” George said, lurching back and knocking something over. 

Dream pulled back too, now completely out of the doorway and on the grass outside, knife still clutched in his right hand. As it glinted in the sun, George really, _really_ wished he was more used to carrying a weapon around. 

“It’s mine,” Dream said after a moment, their voice no less quiet but firmer, like they were expecting George to try and take it away.

George blinked at them. 

“Yes,” he said, “Why are you holding it?”

“It’s mine.” 

“But _why?_ ” 

“Because it’s _mine.”_

If George didn't know any better, he might have said Dream’s tone was becoming slightly confused, like he couldn’t tell why George was scared, or like he was wondering if George actually wanted it.

“Okay,” he decided to leave the point alone for the time being, “why are you here?”

“Why are you here?” 

“That’s what I said.” 

“Yes.” 

“So why are you here?”

“Why are _you_ here?”

George paused. “I’m stuck here.”

Dream tilted his head to the side and back slightly in lieu of a response. 

“Okay, so you’re stuck here too. Why are you so weird?”

No response. 

“Like, why are you following me? And why did you keep knocking on my door last night?”

That seemed to catch the other person’s attention.

“Knocking?”

“Yes, knocking,” George was quickly getting tired of repeating himself, “you’ve been following me, and the knocking on my door last night was the creepiest thing you’ve done so far. So, what’s your excuse?” 

The person tilted their head. “Never seen someone else before. The knocking wasn’t me.”

“You’re awfully good at talking for someone who’s never been with someone else before.”

“Villagers, books,” Dream shrugged. 

George considered the other person. Their hair was definitely a deeper colour than before, in his eyes a deeper gold but in reality it was slightly ginger at the roots, and his clothes were a faded green. The trousers had rips in the knees and an abundance of pockets, all of which looked to have something in, and his hooded jacket had patches sewn on the elbows. His trousers were being held up with a thick leather belt, which had a sheath for the knife and another hanging chain which he had seen on Sapnap’s belt for a sword. But he realised that Dream was waiting, and something about his last statement stuck him.

“Who was knocking?” George asked, the anxious feeling lighting up his chest once more. 

They tilted their head at them like they didn't expect the question. 

“The thing,” they stated, “Something’s out there.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working on editing the fic as fast as possible, so expect one update a day (hopefully) :D


	3. Chapter two: Something's Out There

The other guy didn't seem too interested in giving Dream his name, but that was okay for now. It was just unusual to have someone to talk to who wasn't his reflection in a river or a villager, and while he knew his pronunciation of certain words was horribly off, he couldn't bring himself to care too much. The words ‘s _omeone else’_ were still echoing in his head from the days before, when he had first encountered the other man sitting in a clearing like he had just woken up there, and while Dream didn't know quite what to say then, he knew that he desperately wanted to.

 _Someone else,_ just like him, just passing through the world and moving on as needed. Better yet, he seemed like someone who actually knew how to do things that Dream had always struggled with. Usually when he needed tools he just found them somewhere, but this guy knew how to make them properly, by chipping stones and cooking metals. But Dream didn't know how to ask about it, so he just watched for a while. 

The man blinked at him behind his funny glasses. “What do you mean that there’s something out there?”

Wow. So they really didn't know. That was a problem, considering how difficult it was to explain. 

“The thing,” Dream said. 

“The what?” 

“The thing,” he said again, more insistent, “the darkness.” 

The guy was apparently done with the conversation at that point, and he stood up to brush his hands against his already dirt stained jeans. “Well,” he said, “if you can't give me a proper answer then I guess I’ll be leaving.” 

“That _is_ a proper answer,” Dream said as he got up from the floor as well, and the guy stepped back into Dream’s house when he realised how tall he was. “The darkness was knocking. Not me.” 

“Darkness doesn't knock.”

“It does here. It has been like that everywhere I've been. Are you new?”

The other man looked indignant, and his face flushed a little with anger. “ _No_ ,” he said, “I've been around a very long time. And around other people too, who I need to get back to, if you don't mind.”

“I don't mind,” Dream said and stepped to one side. The other guy burst out of Dream’s house like he was suffocating in there, but Dream didn't want to let the only conversation he’d ever had with another human go, and apparently, according to what the guy had just said, “there’s more people?”

“Not here, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Stop copying me.”

“I’m not. There’s more people?”

“Yes,” the guy was walking away now, and Dream walked after him. They went around the potato field that the guy was having fun playing in earlier. 

“Where?”

“Not here- look, what do you want?”

The guy turned around now to glare at Dream through his funny glasses. In the evening light it was difficult to make out much of anything behind the tinted glass, but Dream was more than able to imagine his expression. ‘Angry’ was what sprung to mind, and then maybe ‘tired’, or ‘hungry’ or ‘appalled’. The last two he could solve, if it was what the other guy was feeling, but it was just so hard to tell. 

“What do _you_ want?” Dream settled on asking instead. Dream could list a thousand things that he himself wanted, but it was better to try and search for mutual ground here than list off his own needs and desires. 

The other guy huffed and turned around, walking towards the old library which he had taken over as his base. 

“Don't talk to me,” he said, not turning around when Dream followed him again. 

“What’s your name?” Dream asked.

“George- no, don't talk to me.”

“Who are the other people?”

“My friends, stop talking to me.”

“Are you hungry?” Dream asked in one last ditch effort to see what the guy - George, apparently - wanted. He felt like he could dance when George turned to look at him again, and this time he looked more suspicious than angry. It was a small win, but a win nonetheless. 

“The potatoes aren't going to be grown until spring,” George said, and that wasn't really an answer, now was it? 

“Do you like deer?” Dream asked this time.

“Not to eat.”

“Do you like pheasant?”

“Wha- no, I’ve never tried it. How would you catch a pheasant?” 

Now that was an obvious question. Dream patted the sheathed knife on his belt, but that just made George turn around again and go inside his house. Before he could close the door Dream asked once more in a final effort, “Do you like pig?”

He stopped and looked confused. “You mean pork?”

“I don't know what pork is. Do you like pig?”

“To eat?”

“Yes.” 

“That’s pork. Pig meat is pork.”

Well, that was a funny way of thinking about it but still something he could work with. “Okay,” Dream said, willing to try anything at this point, and considering how temperamental George was the conversation was almost going well, “Pork. Do you like pork?”

George seemed to hesitate, but he nodded slightly. 

“I can bring you some. Tomorrow, though. It’s late now.” 

“It is,” George agreed, “what will I need to give you in return?” 

Now that was a confusing question. “Huh?”

“Well, you weren’t just going to _give_ it to me, were you? What are you trying to get?”

He thought about it for a moment, and ultimately there wasn't much that sprung to mind. “Tell me how to make your tool,” Dream said, and he pointed to the axe in the doorway. It looked chipped, but a chipped and half-broken tool was still more than Dream had ever made, and George looked down at the axe too. 

“You want the broken axe?”

“No, teach me how to make it. Tomorrow, I’ll bring you pi- pork, and you can teach me. Okay?”

George still looked apprehensive, but he hadn't slammed the door in Dream’s face yet which was a definite plus. 

“Okay,” George said, “and you can tell me more about this darkness you think is haunting you.”

 _The darkness was haunting more than just me_ , Dream thought as George closed the door, _and you should probably learn that quickly._

George kicked him out the house when he came in, shouting about ‘privacy’ and ‘knocking’ despite being so freaked out about the knocking of the darkness the night before, but maybe he was just scared of non-deadly things coming in unannounced. The sun was just appearing over the red trees on the south-east side of the abandoned village, seeping through Dream’s hoodie and warming the frosted landscape, ready for the day ahead. 

His clothing was getting paler, Dream noted, like it had the year before, but his skin was yet to turn the icy white it usually did in winter. When he washed his face in the river after slaughtering the pig, he realised the red flush that characterised his summer look was gone. Soon he would be just yellow, rather than yellow-green, and that was okay. He would be fine, even if he was led down the same path that he was last year.

But that wouldn't happen. There was someone else to look after as well this time, not just himself and whatever situation he found himself in. 

For now, Dream sat on the broken fountain full of dead leaves in what used to be the middle of the bustling, thriving village, thinking about the pig-meat wrapped in wax paper that he had on the stone ledge beside him. The piles of fallen leaves and cobblestones glistened with frost as the sun rose a little further, and distantly he heard the call of a wood pigeon, cooing in lieu of a rooster - the call to morning. 

As if the pigeon was a clock, George opened the door to the village library and looked out. Dream didn’t turn at first, just focusing on breathing and listening. The pigeon called out again. Some sort of small bird chirped out a song, like a wren or a robin. The trees were completely still. 

“Dream?” George called, and Dream came back to himself. He got off the cold stone ledge of the broken fountain and grabbed the wax paper package with one hand. This time, George didn't flinch at the sight of the little hunting knife in his other hand, but that might have been because it was in its leather sheath. 

“Hello,” George said when Dream didn't say anything. 

“Hello,” Dream said, when George rose an eyebrow at him. He wasn't exactly sure if that was the right thing to say, but George seemed to accept it in his unusual way of moving on with the conversation. He wished that in future George would just say if he was doing something wrong instead of getting offended and proceeding to ignore him. 

“Did you sleep well?” George asked, and Dream tilted his head slightly to one side. 

“Yes?” he said, but he wasn't sure why George was asking. 

“Good, good,” George said after a pause, like he was expecting a different response, “Um.”

Dream blinked at him and turned away again to look at the forest. If he listened closely and ignored the loud rustle of George going through the leaves to get a bit closer, he could hear a woodpecker smacking a tree. There was a moment where neither of them said anything. 

“Do you hear that?” he asked, looking towards the tree line. The bird was almost invisible, and if it wasn't for the movement of its head going back and forth, it would have been. 

“Hear what?” George asked, looking at Dream from a metre or so away.

The knife being sheathed didn't help then. He’d have to remember that and not make it too obvious that he was carrying one in future. 

“The woodpecker.”

They were silent. The woodpecker pecked. George tilted his head back slightly as if in recognition.

“What is it?” he asked, then continued, “I’m not used to being so far from other people.”

Dream didn't quite understand what he meant by that, but answered the question willingly. “A woodpecker. It’s just there,” he pointed, “A great spotted woodpecker.” 

“How do you know their names? I thought you weren’t very good at talking.”

He shrugged, “there’s a smaller one, more common but also spotty, so that one’s a lesser spotted woodpecker.” 

“But how do you know their names?” 

“I made them up. Big one, small one, you know.” 

George shifted from side to side like he was uncomfortable, and based on the fact that he was just wearing a t-shirt in the first frost of the year, there was a pretty good chance that he was. Dream tilted his head to look at him, and after seeing him holding his own arms like someone in pain, he turned and started walking towards his little house. 

“Where are you going?” George asked as he followed along.

“My place. You’re cold.”

“No, we’re not going to yours,” George decided for him, “Yours has a broken window.”

“So does yours.” 

“The chests cover it. Look, just bring your blanket to my house and we can talk there. It’s still warm from when I was asleep.” 

“Okay,” Dream said, “But I’m going to get something first. Take this?” He held out the wax paper package for George to take, and when he did, his eyes lit up in surprise.

He unwrapped the small piece of rope that Dream had salvaged from the tanner’s hut to reveal the two pieces of pork that Dream had put inside, and he tilted his head at the sight of it. “You cooked it for me,” he stated, “thank you.”

“It’s okay. I know you don't eat raw meat,” Dream shrugged one shoulder and looked at his house, wondering if he should keep moving or if that would break some social rule. Yes, he knew people didn't eat raw meat, and George obviously did too, but he felt the need to state it. The other man seemed pretty bad at noticing when Dream knew things that he also knew, so it was really a matter of just telling him. 

George wrapped up the meat again but didn't tie it properly. “Well. Yeah. Come to my house when you’ve picked up whatever it is. We can eat together.” 

“Okay.”

Dream turned then, taking the clue that the conversation was on pause until he got what he was looking for, but he still had the distinct feeling that he had said something wrong. George didn't move until he was out of sight. 

“Are you human?” George felt that it was important enough to ask as soon as Dream came through the door this time, which wasn't what he was expecting at all. 

He hadn't knocked again since his hands were full, with a small lantern burner in one hand, another wax paper package in the other, and the two blankets from his bed tossed over his shoulder. His knife was back on his belt, and George had his newly made pickaxe on the bed near where he sat. He was on the floor, one piece of pork half eaten and the other in his lap. 

George’s house was optimised for comfort and nothing else, by the looks of it. The stack of chests and the crafting table were unmoved from when he had rescued his mask the day before, but there were some new features in the room to, the first that drew his eye being the pickaxe, and the second of which being the glowstone that he had stolen the day before from his own house. 

“That’s mine,” he pointed out in a matter of fact way, but made no move to take it from the windowsill.

A collection of bark and kindling was unused in the far corner, along with some pieces of firewood, and the remnants of the old library lined where the wall turned into the roof, with dusty, unmoved books and cobwebs filling the shelves and making the place look a little more colourful. The whole place was made from oak, apart from the bottom of each wall which was made of stone bricks. The two lanterns which hung from the ceiling crackled softly with the fire inside them, and cast further light into the room, making up for the blocked south-facing window. 

“I asked you a question,” George said before taking another bite of pork.

“What was the question?” he asked. 

“Are you human?”

“No.” 

George stopped chewing. He swallowed around the half-eaten portion in his mouth and coughed. 

“What are- w-”

“I don't know,” Dream set his stuff down on the floor a short distance from George, close enough that if either of them kicked their legs out they could touch one another, but far enough to be unreachable with hands. The lantern burner made a soft clinking sound as he put it down, and George turned his attention to it.

“What’s that for?” he asked, and Dream couldn't help but scoff. 

“You existed before coming here, right?”

“Yeah?”

“How did you heat up water?”

“I- I dunno, like in a furnace or by the side of a campfire. It was never _that_ cold.” 

“This,” Dream said as he clicked it on, “is a lantern for heating up water.” 

George didn't say anything for a moment. 

“Just water?” he asked, sounding unimpressed. 

“And food. Whatever. It heats, it’s small. Useful, you know?”

“Where did you get it?”

“Found it.”

That seemed to stop him for a moment. “You found it?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you seriously loot this whole village before- you know what, forget that,” He said, and Dream just nodded as George was talking, “You’re not human.” 

Dream nodded. 

“Well, what are you?”

“Something.”

“Just ‘something’?”

“I don’t know.” 

Dream put the lid of the lantern burner on, before pulling a metal container of water from his pockets and unscrewing the top. He put it onto the burner and added a few leaves of mint that he had found earlier in the woods, before leaving it alone and picking up his own wrapper of food. 

“Can you at least describe yourself?” George asked, “like, you _look_ almost human, apart from the hair changing from what it was a few days ago. It’s darker-”

Dream pulled out his own piece of pork and pulled up the mask just enough to take a bite. George stared at him.

“What?” he asked with his mouth full. 

“You just ate that raw,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Yeah,” Dream said. 

“Your teeth are really sharp.”

“Uh-huh.” 

“Is your skin made of- what is that, wood?”

“Yeah,” Dream said, taking another bite. He hadn't realised how hungry he was. “That’s me.” 

George had turned pale since Dream started eating, which just added to all of George’s other strangeness since he had no problems with eating in front of Dream just moments before, but maybe it was just a human thing. Did humans not eat in front of other humans, but doing it before other species was fine? Or was it the other way around, and they ate in front of humans and reserved themselves with different species. Maybe he was messing up again by not checking, but George wasn't focusing on the food, or even his mouth any more, but the mask. He hoped George didn't try and take it away like he had when he left it on the bush for safe keeping (he’d only wanted George to look after it and make sure that nothing took it as he bathed, since it was his most necessary item, and hadn't expected the other to just outright take it). 

Dream took the time to wipe his fingers as he reached for the next piece of pork. “Is yours okay?” he asked, “is it cooked like humans cook it?”

“Yeah,” George sounded faint, “yeah. I just don't feel like eating the other piece right now.” 

He looked away from the other man for a moment, just to give him a bit of space to sort himself out and deal with whatever had set him so on edge. George was a strange one, after all. Were all humans like this? So hot and cold? 

“You can have some tea,” Dream said to ease the situation a bit.

“What’s in it?”

“Just mint. It helps bad breath.”

Weakly, George snorted, but he took the metal container off the burner anyway, using the corner of his blanket to shield himself from the excess heat. Dream took another bite of pork, but he remembered something that he wanted to say the day before. 

“The darkness is really bad, George,” he said, turning back to look at the other man. 

George paused as he held the container in both hands and hunched over it, looking at Dream like he wasn't sure what exactly to fear. Dream continued. 

“It bites and takes and pulls. You really need to stay out of it, okay?”

There was a pause.

“You’re scared of the dark?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. That was the classic portrayal of getting an idea, and Dream sincerely hoped that George was starting to understand. 

“You should be too,” he said, earnest, “anyone should. Don't think you’re immune. Look,” Dream put down the wax paper on the floor and pulled back the arm of his hoodie, rolling it to keep it up. George looked at it and drew back just as quickly. “It bites,” Dream said again, “it takes and it pulls. You don't heal like this. Do you understand?” 

George’s face was white and gaunt, drawn like linen stretched across a canvas, and Dream almost wished he hadn't shown him. But it got the message across, and he rolled down the sleeve again. Now he really wouldn't want the other piece of pork, Dream thought. 

“God,” George said, “god. Of all the worlds to fall into, why did it have to be one with a grue?” 

For lack of anything else to do, Dream shrugged. George didn't drink his tea, in the end. 

So, George was beginning to realise a few things, the first of which was that he had taken every other world he had ever been in for advantage. How was he supposed to know how much worse it could get? It seemed bad enough when skeletons appeared on your buildings and knocked you off the roof, and when your friend would occasionally be a moron and blow up your stuff. 

But now there were strangers who were trees (apparently he was a male tree-people, but also didn't know of any female tree-people) and also wore masks and were carnivorous with teeth like a deep-sea fish, and a monster in the darkness that wanted to eat you, yes eat you, alive. It also apparently didn't matter if you were one of the aforementioned tree-people or a real-people, the monster in the night wanted a bite. 

Dream didn't seem to be bothered at the minute. After finishing off his still bloody meat he had drank the cold tea and told him all about the things he had seen while George was trying for three days to make a pickaxe. The tree-people part of him at least explained the mannerisms when it came to their first interactions. He’d never spoken to humans. He’d watched George try to destroy something that was technically of the same classification as him (it would be like if he came across Dream slaughtering a monkey. Not the same, but similar enough to send a message). He was horribly socially awkward. It sort of made sense that Dream had tried to avoid him for so long.

But that night, Dream didn't do anything that George had worried about, and instead only said ‘bye’ before taking his lantern burner and blankets and leaving his house for the night. It still didn't feel right that Dream was missing all his social cues when they were talking, but at the same time, there was something he could appreciate when Dream didn't mess around with pleasantries and got straight to business. 

He didn't appreciate it when Dream came into his house unannounced the next morning, but at the very least George didn't feel like he was a complete stranger this time. He still kicked him out though, sometimes he just had to stick to his guns. 

Later that day they went into the woods together to find the clearing that Dream insisted was good for acorns (what did a tree-person need acorns for?) and along the way he talked. He talked a lot. 

“Holly is poisonous,” he said, “to you, but to me it’s like something that really doesn't want to be eaten.”

“Like it’s poisonous to you as well?” George asked in disbelief. 

“Yeah.” Dream didn't seem to get it, “but it’s not. It just makes me a bit sick.” 

They came across the clearing, and Dream went about finding a couple of sticks as George all but tripped through a pile of leaves. The air was clear, as was the sky, and he wouldn't be surprised if there was another frost tonight as the world declined into an early winter. He was already shivering, but he’d only been out of the house for maybe an hour or so, which didn't bode well for the near and inevitable future. The idea of being unprepared for the winter was a harrowing one, but while George wasn't great at hunting and gathering it seemed Dream was more than able to take over that role. If George could convince Dream to stick around then he might be alright. There was a question which had been bothering him though. 

“Why do you wear the mask?” George asked when Dream was done explaining the difference between the very delicious wild garlic and the very poisonous wild garlic. 

“Protection,” Dream said, “and my face freaks villagers out. They don't trade without it.” 

“Can I see it?” he asked. 

“No,” Dream said, “when will you teach me how to make an axe?” 

George looked at him. The mask was covering the bottom of his face again, obscuring the mark on his chin (chin?) and the flesh of his lower lip (lip? flesh?). 

He didn't know what to say, so he asked something else, “can you teach me how to fight?”

“When will you teach me how to make an axe?”

“Can you teach me how to fight?”

“Okay, but only if you teach me how to make an axe.”

Dream’s mask stared at him through his glasses. It smiled like it knew something that he himself didn't, but somehow it also looked a little earnest. He felt the need to ask the obvious. 

“How have you survived so long without knowing?” George said each word carefully, like any slip up could make Dream upset and make him do something drastic. But Dream just finished pulling a branch the size of his arm from a bush and then went to go find another one. George watched as he paced around the clearing like an animal on the hunt; careful, precise, and an opportunist. 

“I explore,” he said simply, “and if I don't find anything, then I die.” 

George blinked. A woodpecker rattled like a machine somewhere in the distance and Dream tilted his head to listen. When he turned back to the task at hand, George spoke up again. 

“You don't try?”

“No. If I find stuff I will, but if I don't then I don't. What do you do if you can't find stuff?”

“Usually I’m with others. And there isn't the… the thing. The grue. Before now I’ve just hid in a dark cave with five or six others and explored the next day.” 

“Sounds nice,” Dream said without any infliction, which wasn't what George was expecting. 

Dream had been taking everything that differed between their two worlds in stride so far - the people, the differences in monsters, and even George himself. He was expecting Dream to be upset at how much easier his life seemed when the two were compared, but so far there hadn't been anything of the sort. If anything, he seemed happy to listen and imagine what George’s life was like before they met. He wasn't jealous of George knowing how to make tools, nor of the fact that he didn't necessarily need to know how to fight. He was indifferent, growing paler by the day, and interested in learning more. 

George was still a little wary of him. Dream’s mouthful of knives that he had caught a glance of the night before was not something he’d be getting over any time soon. 

He was too busy being lost in his own head that he hardly noticed when Dream held out a branch to him, but still thinking about the strange situation they found themselves in, he took it and waited for directions. 

“First,” Dream said as he got behind George. Even with the mask, he could feel the breath against his ear, “you’ll need to keep your legs about a shoulders-width apart.” 

“When do you think winter will start?” George asked as Dream pulled him up from the floor again, “I should really get some warmer clothes.”

“Soon. Maybe next week the leaves will be gone”, Dream replied. 

“Are you sure? That’s really soon.”

“It is. I can," he stopped himself, "I can just tell. It’s coming quickly, over the hills and through this valley.”

“We’re in a valley?”

“A big one. Why did you think it rained so much? It’s usually a west wind, so who knows. We might have a bit longer.”

George looked at his feet as he got into position again, readying the stick out in front of him and glancing up at Dream through his fringe. Dream stood still, looking at George with his stick held limply in his hand. “Are you going to be okay?” Dream asked, and George stood up straight.

“Yeah? I’ll have you.”

Dream didn’t say anything.

“Right?” 

“Yeah”, he said after a moment, “yeah I’ll be there.”

George nodded, more to himself than Dream, and they got into position opposite one another, their sticks raised and Dream ready to begin another demonstration. It was weird being opposite the other man like this, no longer having to see him with private eyes and commit him to memory whenever possible, but being able to take his fill in full whenever possible. The only skin that George could see on his whole body were the tips of his fingers (because of his fingerless gloves), his knees through the tears in his trousers, and a thin sliver of neck where his hood didn't quite cover it. He looked really pale, aside from the fingers which flushed with the cold 

“What do you do for winter, George?”

It was still a little weird to hear his name come from Dream’s mouth, but he answered without pause. 

“Go out, collect sticks and grass tufts and food, and return to the house in the evening. Maybe I’ll do some building if the weather looks clear enough. What about you?”

Dream didn't respond for a while, not properly. He showed George how to block an attack that came from overhead, and then backed off. Dream’s smiling mask looked to the floor, but he couldn't tell if he was examining something or just didn't want to look at George. 

“I sleep a lot,” he said, “and I need to get food now rather than later. Sometimes it gets scarce in winter, you know?”

George nodded, “I do. Do you, um,” Dream was looking at him again and his words faltered, “do you want to stay at my house over winter? It means one less fire, and more warmth because neither of our houses have a fireplace.”

“Please,” Dream said, his voice sounding weak, deflated, “that would be amazing.” 

“Okay then, that’s settled,” George smiled. He just really didn't want to spend winter alone again - it had been years since the last time he had and it was a struggle from beginning to end, “I look forward to it.”

Dream didn't say anything. His mask watched the ground again.

That evening, just after the sun had set below the trees and taken its warmth with it, George watched as he scrubbed the piece of flint down with the whetstone. His hands were bigger than George’s which made it more difficult to hold the stones correctly without his fingers getting in the way, but nevertheless he persisted in dragging it across the surface. He scraped and scraped and scraped. 

The house was no warmer than the day before, and Dream hadn't brought any food with him this time, so George settled into the idea of needing to do some gathering of his own the next day. Dream had managed to catch a pig, so how hard could it be? Especially now that he could swing a stick around like a sword. His broken axe was basically a sort of sharp club. He wrapped the blanket around him tighter. If he killed something, maybe he could use its fur or skin to make a cape or cloak. It was getting colder by the hour out there in their wilderness.

“This is boring,” Dream said, but he didn't stop the hand movements as he refined the axe head from a stone into a tool. 

“Yeah,” George replied, watching him still, “it’s better when there’s something to watch or listen to as you go.” 

“What did you watch?” he asked.

_Scrape. Scrape. Scrape._

“I don't know, anything really,” he said and pressed his hand to his chin, “I had a friend who fished for hours. Basically every time it rained. I sometimes kept him company.” 

“What did he fish for?”

“Again, just anything. He got a book once with so many runes drawn in it that it became his most prized possession. I don't know if he used it for anything or just kept it.” 

“What else?”

“Uh, another person I knew who I wasn't quite friends with. He fought monsters a lot, so he sometimes sparred with my other friends. He wasn't human either, thinking about it.” 

“Was he like me?”

“No. you’re the only you I know.” 

“You’re the only you that I know, too.”

“Like, human?”

“Yes. You’re also the only George.” 

George smirked, “There’s more than just me, you know. There are other humans called George.” 

“Are they you?” Dream asked

His voice turned serious as he looked up at George, and the movement of his hands on the two stones stopped as if he was trying to impress upon him how worried he was, but George just gave a one-armed shrug. 

“No, probably not,” but Dream didn't seem satisfied with the answer. 

“The only me is me,” he said, “I made sure of it. Are you _sure_ the only you is you?”

George looked at his mask and wondered, if only for a moment, whether or not he was being serious about ‘making sure of it’. “I don't know,” George finally said, “Does it matter?”

“It does,” Dream turned back to his task and kept scraping at the axe head. 

_Scrape. Scrape. Scrape._

“It really, really does.” 

He continued his task in silence, watching as the piece of flint became more of a tool and as the whetstone bled the flint-dust into the water. After a moment, like George had shown him to do earlier, Dream dunked both his hands and the two stones into the bucket of water, letting the grey seep from his hands and away from his pale skin. It was lighter than before, George was sure of it, but there wasn't a way to point out to a not-quite-stranger that their skin was changing colour.

“Are we alone here, Dream?” George asked.

“Probably,” he responded, “I haven't seen anyone else-” 

A knock. 

Silence. 

Another two knocks at the door. At the door at night. When the only other being he knew of in the whole world was with him inside. A knock from the darkness. Dream lurched up and grabbed one of the tree branches he found earlier. 

“Wait here,” he said, letting the whetstone and flint fall back into the wooden bucket of water. The knocking sound had stopped, but Dream still opened one of the lanterns George kept around his new home and stuck the end of the branch into it. He paid no attention to George as he got up and grabbed his pickaxe. 

“No,” George said, brandishing the pickaxe, “what are you even going to do out there?” 

“Stay close to the house,” he said as he pulled out his sharp little knife, “don't die.” 

Dream nudged the door open with his foot, but all George could see through the doorway was the night sky over his shoulder and nothing else. The air was freezing, and his arms pricked with the feeling of it sweeping past him and entering the house behind them like an unwanted guest, and despite there being no cloud cover, there was also no moon. The darkness made a noise. It sounded a bit like someone choking, or a frog, or something else entirely. Dream took a couple of steps out into the night, looking left and right for something that he probably thought was obvious, but George didn't know what. He was far enough away from the doorway now that George couldn't follow him without stepping into the shadows, so he stayed in the threshold, watching as the circle of light containing Dream gradually got further and further away. If the torch went out now, George wouldn't have been able to see him at all. The frosted leaves below him looked almost like jewels. 

“Dream,” George said, almost a whisper, “what are you doing?”

“Something's out here,” he said without further explanation. 

The flames on his torch changed direction, turning left and towards the centre of the village. He sniffed the air like it would tell him something, then lowered the torch to the ground like that would tell him something as well, but all he did was turn to face the same way the flame was. 

“George,” he said quietly, “I’m just going to check something out, okay?” 

And then Dream walked left, ignoring George’s spluttered advice to not go out there, and went towards the centre of the village in his halo of light like a ghost, like something George shouldn't be seeing at all, and the next time he blinked, Dream disappeared behind an abandoned house. 

He was gone. 

Just gone. 

And George was alone on the threshold, listening to the darkness as it made its choking sound again, waiting to see if a smiling mask would appear from the darkness once more.


	4. Chapter three: The Slow-Burning Fuse

A day passed, then two.

George emerged from the house with a new axe in hand and questions on his mind. His pickaxe was strapped to his back but his arms were still bare and his face drawn like that of a corpse, dehydrated and hungry, eyes open and searching, starved for answers. Most of the trees were leafless, and yet the world was no less colourful than before, still and wet from the rain the day. Leaves littered the ground, swirling up into dances and settling down to rest just as quickly. There was no woodpecker today. Other than George going through leaves, moving towards the south end of the village, there was no sound. 

The first thing on his to-do list was to gather food, but after that, there was a cave somewhere that he was going to lay claim to and pick to pieces. 

The talks with Dream about wild food had come in handy, as it turned out, and George wasted no time in pulling up the weird looking purple carrots and shoving them into his bag. There was enough to fill him completely and then some, totalling at around thirty vegetables which he would have to wash later and roast. That was another thing he’d learnt - cooking made almost everything better, with the only exception being watermelon. Most of the time he just ate carrots raw, but maybe it was time to try and change that.

He also came across a pumpkin, which was too big to go into his bag whole and had a small patch of rot on one side from where it had been on the earth too long, so he cut it into sixths and ditched the piece with the rot, instead gathering its seeds. 

Even if he held no hope for the future, the seeds were important to him. It meant he wasn't giving up yet. It meant he still had to try. For everyone in his old life, for Dream, he had to try.

The cave he came across was terrible. Granite lined the walls and stopped him from getting any proper stone, and it was too tough to mine straight through in search for a vein of ore, so he snapped off some branches from a tree and lit the ends in a mockery of a proper torch. Coal was next on his mental list, and unless he came across something horrible down there then the cave would have to do. If he estimated correctly he would have about eight minutes of light before the temporary torch ran out, but until then he just had to deal with the smouldering wood inching closer to his hand like the wick of a candle, looking for the tell-tale speckle of dark material in the walls. 

He could still see the entrance of the cave when he found it, below his feet in thin lines across the stone like rivers, but he went a bit further, turning the branch this way and that in the darkness to make sure that nothing, no one, was there. Satisfied, he turned his back to the maw of the cave and to the patch of ore. He lodged the branch in a nearby crevice and pulled his pickaxe off his back.

George might not have been a fighter, but he knew that strength came from many places, and for him it was this - just collecting, utilising, and improving things. He still wished that he had taken Sapnap up on those fighting lessons, though, and that he and Dream had more time to try and make it happen. But he had to go on. There was no use in thinking about it now.

He left a trail of torches behind him like breadcrumbs, and he tried to think of the expedition like all of his other ones in his old world, without fearing the dark but more-so what was in it. The only problem with doing that so far was the distinct lack of monsters.

There were no rattling bones, or groans, or spiders hissing, or the soft footfalls of something sneaking up behind, or the vwoops of endermen or the knowing chuckles of witches - just the occasional cave noise, which in his heightened state, sounded almost like someone else walking on the stone floors of the caves. 

The first time he heard it he stopped in his tracks, ears sharp and eyes focusing in on the imaginary shapes in the darkness as if something would come forward to say hello. But nothing moved, and he just stood there for a moment listening, wondering, and half-hoping. He shook himself and moved forward, raising his torch to look around. He didn't have time to waste. 

The second set of footsteps came too. 

Coal and iron acquired, George dug a hole in a wall to use as a temporary smeltery, and made a small pit of coal in the floor further up in the cave to stop the smoke from staying down there with him. He lit both, but as he waited for the smeltery to get up to temperature, he roasted three of the pumpkin slices he found earlier. It wasn't the same as meat, but food was better than no food, and he savoured it all the same. After finishing the second piece in record time, he stopped for breath. He hadn't realised how hungry he was, too distracted by more obvious and pressing matters. 

As he went to take a bite of the third piece, something moved. 

He whipped his head around, still cradling the last piece of pumpkin in both hands as he blindly stared into the darkness further up the cave. Nothing moved as he looked, but the hairs on the back of his neck rose and stood on end like they were reaching for someone else’s hand. He looked in the other direction, yet there was still nothing - just the smeltery he’d put in the wall and more shadows seeping into the light. Sniffing the air, around the smell of smoke and coal was the musty smell of ozone, like grass after it rained or a forest decomposing, but he was too far down. There were no trees or grass or rain this far down in the caves, not unless the world had decided to put a ravine hundreds of metres deep into the earth, a scar across the landscape. 

Looking up and down the cave, George took a bite of the pumpkin and chewed slowly, not quite savouring it as he sat listening for anything else, and for a while he heard nothing. 

As he took the last bite of his pumpkin, the darkness, far, far down in the cave made a choking sound, like someone dying. George stood, mouth full, hands sticky, and grabbed his axe. One step, two, and he was standing beside the smeltery, using its skin-blistering heat and red light to see further into the darkness. Nothing happened, and while George’s feet were already aching from the expedition down there so far, he stood as still as the stone walls around him, eyes searching the abyss for whatever was there. 

Another noise came from behind him and his whole body twitched with the urge to turn around, to look, but he waited, eyes still trained to the specific point in the darkness. 

When he was younger, much younger, and couldn't sleep at night he used to stare blankly up into the dark ceiling and see how long he could keep his eyes open. Often when he did that, he saw things that were hard to describe, like a spill of oil casting a kaleidoscope of colours and waves or like the holographic inside of an oyster shell, but simultaneously neither. The patterns were what struck him, always there in the darkness until he blinked, when they would disappear into the shadows again like the patterns hadn't realised that he was awake. He knew what that looked like though, so when he saw _it_ in the darkness, he knew, _he knew_ , that he wasn't seeing things. 

With a gasp he stumbled as he took a step back, his axe still in hand and his eyes wide, blinking rapidly. It lasted one, two blinks before it disappeared once more into the darkness. He felt confident up until now. Foolishly, he thought there was only the darkness out there to hurt him. 

But the thing in the darkness, what he once thought had eyes, looked at him. Those were not eyes. That was glass reflecting light. 

George snatched up a torch, shoving the end into the smeltery and holding it before him like a weapon. He turned it this way and that, walking further into the cave and checking every crevice, behind every stalagmite and outcrop, until he reached a fork in his path. He was separated from the little camp which he had made before, surrounded on all sides, and when he listened to see if he could hear more cave sounds he stopped, realising he was listening to someone else’s breathing. 

When he turned back, he ran. 

The second pair of footsteps bled from the darkness that surrounded where he just was, following him back. The breathing became louder. 

Iron was an unruly thing to work with, needing to be heated and reheated, needing to be battered and forced into shape, and refusing to last when turned into tools. Iron bars could last forever, but an iron pickaxe like the one George made could sometimes last less than a day. He wasn't sure how long the sword he made would last either, considering how he had never made one before, but when push came to shove, it could make a pretty mean club. 

The thing hadn't come after him this time, and he wasted no time in gathering more coal, more iron shards and even a little gold. There was no time to waste now that the prickly feeling of being watched had returned, but he wished that it was just Dream, like it had been before. 

_Dream_ , he thought as the pickaxe came down on a piece of stone, but his hit was crooked. Nothing chipped away, and George’s shoulders slumped under the burn that permeated through them. He pulled one coal-blackened hand to his face and rubbed behind his glasses, smearing it on his already filthy face. He was too hot, skin clammy from the damp cold of the cave, and his fingers were probably bright red beneath the dust that stained them. 

“Dream,” he whispered, not finding it in him to lift the pickaxe again. 

He folded. 

“Dream.” George sobbed, on his knees and chest to his thighs. 

Something in the darkness moved again, shimmering like something invisible deciding to show itself, but George had enough. His head snapped and he snatched the torch off the floor. 

“No, I'm done with you,” he spat, and aimed the flickering torch towards whatever changed, “I’m done.” 

At double the pace he was at before, George jogged further into the maw of the cave, stumbling over loose rocks and kicking over pebbles as he watched for any sign of movement. “I’m done being scared of you,” he shouted, “I’m done trying to avoid you. Where are you?”

The cave split into two, and he turned left without thinking. “Where are you?” he yelled, his voice echoing, “where the hell are you?”

The cave led down, left, right, down again, and down, and down, and down, until he lost his footing and slid on some loose terrain into a pool of water. Sputtering with rage, he kicked and pulled his way upwards, torch still lit and held up above him as a beacon in the dark. He couldn't see the walls, but the limestone ceiling reflected the torchlight down around him in a halo, with only the cavity in sight being the one that he fell through open above him. The water was only around knee deep, freezing cold, but his fall had soaked him, seeping up his trousers and sticking his shirt to his already stone-cold skin. His hands were red around the torch, his items scattered through the water and his bag hanging from the opening above, but at that moment, despite it all, he focused on something else. 

The eyes in the darkness. 

The thing that followed him.

It had wooden skin, and teeth like a deep-sea fish, but no mask, just a pair of glasses. 

It was him. 

The forest had been treating him well, it seemed. 

Pumpkins, carrots, another ruined village and an area with so much dead lavender that the scent of it made his eyes water. But it was good to be back in the first village, where his own little house was waiting for him to return like a dog awaiting its master, and he was pleased to see his collection of glow-stones was still there too, even if George had shown fascination in them when they first properly met. 

Which was a good point. Dream’s little unexplained disappearance probably hadn't sat well with his new friend, even if it was really important to make sure that there wasn't anything out there. 

“George?” he yelled into the village, making his way over to the old library. 

His clothes were almost completely white now, his winter colours showing in full and his hair gaining a crispy quality in the morning like frost. His mask still smiled, and he smelt a bit like a bonfire after carrying burning sticks around for three nights, but it could be worse. 

“Ge-ooo-rge,” he called out again as he opened the door to the other man’s home without knocking. 

No-one was there. The room was as cold as outside, and the two lanterns which had been burning brightly up until this point were extinguished. What stuck him, however, was the fact that the pickaxe George had been working on, along with the axe Dream had been whittling down the night he disappeared were gone. 

“George?” he said quietly, as if to not disturb the ghosts or mice that might have moved in during his absence. Nothing responded, and he left the house. 

“George?” he called out, heading towards the church. 

The other man had been in the church a few times since appearing in the woods, never emerging with anything but going back to double, triple, quadruple check just in case, and while it was Dream’s first time inside, he could see why he went back. It was beautiful there when the sun was shining, with pale stone walls holding the image of the stained-glass cast in an ethereal, inhuman way. The floors were covered in debris, though, some of it undisturbed in dusty piles and other bits pulled up, and the whole thing was filled with the fiery-red dogwood that he had seen on his travels. 

He left the church.

The tannery was next, but that looked mostly empty, save for an empty chest on its side. The windows in there were broken, with the tell-tale violent-red of Virginia creeper taking over the far wall from the outside in. He didn't go near it, too wary of the last time he got rashes from it. 

The fisher’s hut, the mason’s and another house had been taken over by dead leaves and conkers, which of the latter he stuffed a few in his pockets as a guarantee spider repellent (just in case), and what looked to be an old town hall was infested with brambles, thick and unruly like barbed wire, to the point where it wasn't even worth seeing if George was stuck in the middle of it.

“George?” he called, just in case. 

Then it was the school house, and the well, then the stables and the butcher’s shop, then the potato field that George had been playing in that time, then the broken glass maker’s, then the forge, the blacksmith’s, and the mines behind it. 

Which was an odd thing. 

He could have sworn he smelt something cooking, sweet and earthy, in need of salt and maybe some other spice. Pumpkin. It was roasted pumpkin coming from the mine. 

“George!” he yelled down into the shaft, hearing it repeat over and over before fading into nothing. 

_Well_ , Dream thought, _He’s the expert._

Which wasn't a lie - George had talked about being in caves before, and since he mentioned gathering iron Dream could only assume that was it. George had seemed terrified of the concept behind the darkness before, so any other explanation didn't make sense. 

So he grabbed a stick and the burner from his house, lit the end of it as a temporary torch, and down, down, down he went, holding it ahead of him as a beacon in the gloom and keeping the burner as backup in case the stick went too low. Until then, the stick burned bright, illuminating the walls and all its cracks and crevices, but the conkers seemed to work and no spiders appeared in the mineshaft as he explored further, turning this way and that, looking up and down, left and right, and trying not to stumble over leftover minecart tracks. 

The place was awful, with dripping water falling from the ceiling, swamping the floor in places and becoming an underground river in others, creating roadblocks, trip hazards, and stalagmites to hit his head on. If he wasn't so used to fumbling through the forest he might have had a harder time, but loose rocks and outcrops of dirt were a bit like piles of leaves after rain, and the feeling of being watched had lessened since getting down there, or even since he left George behind by accident.

Which in hindsight, he was really starting to regret. 

“George?” he called, listening as it reverberated across the caverns and through the posts keeping the mines up.

He had pretty good luck so far, only coming across fallen passages twice and being forced to turn back on himself, and he felt like he was getting closer by the moment. The spider spawner a few turns back - maybe ten or so - had been broken with something other than desperate hands, like with an axe or sword, and there wasn't any evidence that it had been the villagers who travelled the mines in the whatever-time before. There was also a path of markings he made sure to follow, using a lime or chalk substance to put handprints on the walls, which in places, were still slightly damp. This was George. There wasn't another explanation. 

“George!” he shouted, listening carefully. One moment, then two.

Faintly, so faintly, like the sound of a butterfly taking off; “Where are you?”

“George!” he felt the back of his throat protest at his volume, “George!” 

He moved, no less carefully than before, but faster. His branch flickered as he went further in, his burner bashed against the knife on his belt. 

“George!” 

Up slightly, then down. Left, right, a fork in the road, right, left, another fork. Left. 

Down, down, down.

But then his foot caught something and his ankle rolled, he stumbled, and down his torch went into the darkness before him, slipping off a ledge as he followed along, dragging with him stones and rocks and pebbles, before over the edge he went.

And straight into water, soaking him through. 

_I’m dead,_ he thought, _oh well, it was a good run._

But he wasn't dead. 

“Dream,” a terrified voice yelled. He lifted his head. 

“George.”

George just looked at him, half submerged in shadow and blank in the face, as if he was trying not to kill him after Dream had run off. 

“I thought you were dead,” George said, but his mouth didn't move. 

The voice was coming from the same direction as the light. 

“George?” he asked, getting up now.

There were two of him, but--

“Wait,” he said, “oh no. Wait.” 

It was him. 

Dream looked between George and other-George, his clothes soaked through and body-language almost curious, a sharp contrast to the hundred beats a minute George’s heart was doing and the sharp prickly feeling travelling up and down his body, and other-George just watched him as if he was about to inform them of some unfortunate news. If the circumstances had been better, George would have been tempted to scream and yell and get mad and maybe cry a bit before falling into Dream’s arms, but as it was, he felt like moving might kill him. Petrified. 

Dream’s stick had fallen in the water, and between him and other-George, he was partially submerged in light like a peacekeeper between two foes. George’s axe was somewhere in the water too. 

“You,” Dream said, more as a statement than anything else, as he looked at other-George. 

Other-George didn't say anything, but his body twitched. 

“Dream?” George said, watching carefully. If the other-George moved and Dream wasn't quite in-the-way enough, then the other would have a clear path to him. He waded through the water so the other couldn't quite see him so clearly. 

“Me,” other-George said, voice neutral. 

George shivered. 

“What?” Dream asked, and he felt sick. 

They were talking like they knew one another.

“Like you,” the other-George said and shrugged, “you know.” 

Dream didn't reply immediately, and other-George’s eyes slid over to him. They were hardly visible through the glass, only barely catching the light as they moved. 

“Dream?” George asked again, taking a step back and almost slipping, fear gripping him, refusing to let him go. The wall appeared in the torchlight behind him. His axe glinted in the water. 

“I do,” Dream finally said, and other-George stepped forward. 

George screamed and stepped back. Dream stepped towards the other-George, and the other-George screamed too, cutting off. 

Curdling, gasping breaths, the flash of metal, and blood in the water. Blood. So much blood, smelling like coal and the colour of it too. George fell into the water, watching, torch mere centimetres from its surface, as Dream pulled the other-George to the pool and held his right hand to its neck, and he watched as other-George gasped like a fish out of water as Dream finished slitting its throat. 

George kicked back like a wild animal, trying to get away with nowhere to go, and he desperately held the torch above him, above the water, as it hissed and spluttered from stray droplets hitting it. Other-George wasn't going down so easily either, his hand grabbed at Dream’s arms and the fabric of his hoodie, dying it with his own blood, leaving a mark on them both. Dream’s breathing was harsh, raspy, like he was fighting back tears. George didn't bother. 

“Dream,” he said around the lump in his throat, “Dream.” 

“George,” Dream whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Did you know-?”

“No,” Dream’s mask almost dipped in the water, “no, no. I thought I was the only one.” 

At that, George gasped and held his tongue, his chin wobbling, blinking rapidly. There were thousands of questions, some with answers he knew but couldn't handle, flying around his head, but there wasn't any time. 

“Dream,” he said, struggling to stand with one hand, “what, I mean. Was that…?”

“No,” he said again. He was still holding the body. Its glasses reflected from below the water, and its shoes breached the surface, even as Dream held it down. 

George swallowed. The torch flickered and dimmed, and Dream let the mask sink deeper. The very bottom of the mask touched the forehead of the body in the water in a mockery of a kiss, like he was wishing he hadn't done what he had. 

“We’re going to die,” Dream said, matter of factly. 

George felt water run down his face. The flame on the torch was getting lower and lower by the moment. 

“Will you be there? Wherever I end up?” Dream looked at him for the first time since he fell into what became a watery grave. 

He just looked at him. The mask was askew. George’s nose was too stuffed to breathe through, and his jaw felt too heavy to close, but too stiff to open further. Dream moved no further. George wished he could say something, but before he could think of anything, the light went out. 

And like the static of a radio, the darkness got louder and louder. 


	5. Chapter four: Crown me a King of Winter

It had happened before, and it would happen again. 

While Dream never denied it, he just wished it was less painful. While George said he accepted it, he really wished it wasn't the case. 

Darkness, darkness, deeper and deeper, and far, far colder . 

Like floating, a little. Like sinking, a lot. 

The inevitably of death, and all that. 

A gasp. He was soaking wet. Why the hell was he soaking wet? Why the hell was he so heavy? His eyes were open, but everything was so dark. His mouth was full of cotton. 

A gasp. He was lying on stone. His face pressed into ice. Something under his stomach was moving. Everything was so cold, freezing. He couldn't open his eyes. He was just so tired. 

“Ugh,” George said, around his mouthful of cotton. 

“Mmmgnnnhgph,” the thing on top him said, if what it said could be considered a word. 

“D’mph?” George said, if that was a word either. 

“Mmmmmmm.” 

He twitched and tried to move his arm. Once he did, cold air rushed in where his skin was previously insulated against the snow, making his hairs stand on end and pull any heat he had away from his skin. He grabbed the mass above him, and it jolted. 

“Ah!” 

Whatever it was (he was too busy thinking about _other_ , previous things to wonder if ‘it’ was a ‘who’) slid to his left, smearing the cotton that was in his mouth across his face and pulling the glasses off his face. He kicked a bit and the shape moved further, until George could sit up properly. 

“Oh,” he said, looking around. 

Dream’s clothing was completely white, his hair a bright silver like someone five times his age, and he lay face down and half on top of George. If not for that fact, there would probably be a pretty good chance that he would be dead already from the cold, never having woken up in the landscape, the wasteland. 

There were no trees or bushes to be seen from his position on the floor, and the late-morning sun rose on the horizon like it really didn't want to be there, hugging the skyline and staying close to the ground. They were north, then. Far north. George turned to look behind him, but the only thing he could see was a tree stump, and due to the weather he couldn't tell if it was freshly cut or not. The temperature froze the amber resin that had seeped out of it and dribbled down the sides. It must have been a spruce, he realised, for the bark was too disjointed to be oak but not flaky enough to be a birch. The top of the stump was covered in snow. The only other discernible feature was a low hill to his left, white with snow, with no other characteristics. The sky was a bright azure blue. 

“Dream,” he said, and kneed him.

“W’t?” 

“We died.”

Dream’s face rose from the snow. The mask stayed behind. 

“What?” 

“ _What?”_

Dream looked confused. 

“What?”

“Your,” George pointed to his own face.

Dream put his head back in the snow and wrapped the ribbon around the back of his head in a simple, practiced movement. He looked up again, and George and the mask looked at one another. 

“Where are we?” he asked, his voice tight. 

George took the cue and stood, brushing off the snow with his already numbing fingers. He was still damp, his clothes sticking to him even without a breeze blowing in the new world of theirs. 

“We died,” George said, “I was expecting more scars, to be honest.”

Dream got up too, his movements slow and unpractised like a new-born calf, and his long limbs didn't help matters. George watched with a keen eye as he took in their surroundings. He took note of the stump, then the hill, and finally the sun that grazed the horizon. 

“We need warmth or even shelter,” he decided immediately, “fast.” 

“What should we do?” George asked. 

“Um,” Dream said. 

They stood there for a moment, looking at one another expectantly. 

“Well?”

“ _Well?”_

Staring contest. 

“Should we talk about what happened?”

“Not if you want to live.”

“Do _you_ want to live?”

Dream shrugged. His clothes made an unnatural crinkling sound at the movement, and George wrapped his arms around himself. 

“I die, remember? We could always die and start again, if you want to chance us not being in the same world.” 

“I’d rather not.”

“Me neither.” 

George fought the urge to chatter his teeth. Dream didn't look too affected by it, but his movements were slower and more deliberate. Perhaps he was saving energy by doing less. 

“Go up the hill,” George decided, “I’m going to strip this stump for kindling. We might be able to find a dead tree somewhere, or see something up there to go towards.” 

Looking at him through the mask, Dream didn't say or do anything until George shot him a sharp look, which made him take off towards the hill. The sun wasn't doing much for his body heat, but George still crouched down beside the log and pushed the snow off its top to examine it. He pried off one piece of bark, and after the first bit went, the rest soon came with it. 

Pick, pick, pick. Piece by piece his fingers got colder, turning from a gentle flush of pink to bright, angry red, from working to stiff, and even if the cold didn't end up killing him, if they didn't hurry it would be taking something from George that wouldn't grow back. 

“Dream!” he yelled up the hill, and with nothing there to muffle it, the other man’s head turned, “Anything?” 

But instead of answering, he tumbled down the hill at double the speed he climbed it, using the snow as a means of cushioning his fall, and he trudged over in the same way someone waded through mud. He was breathing heavily, wheezing in a way George hadn't heard before, and his mask was slipping loose again. A single, black-as-night eye looked at him from around it, but there was no malice or nefarious intent like there had been in the eyes of his copy-cat. Before George could comment, Dream spoke up.

“It’s getting dark,” Dream huffed.

George grit his teeth. “Yeah,” he said, “Did you find-?”

“No. Nothing is around for miles, that I could see.”

Dream was wheezing, his voice and body strained. 

“What direction?” George asked, looking around. 

“Pick one.” 

George looked around again. They had less than an hour until nightfall. 

“South,” he said, and they began to move. 

The snow came up to their knees, making running impossible, and pulled what little body heat they had from them sooner than they could produce it. The world was out to get them, hostile without monsters, deadly without weapons, and the once white horizon yellowed with the setting sun. The sky turned red as the sun started its descent. 

“Half an hour?” George guessed, wishing for more time.

“Less,” Dream said, “let’s say less.” 

“Igloo?”

“Do you have a shovel?”

“Uhm, dirt house?”

“Ground is frozen solid.”

“Cave?”

“Where?” 

George heaved a breath. He had to stop moving, his legs stiff and body shaking like a leaf as it struggled to regain its temperature. He put his hands on his legs and stopped breathing when he realised something. As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting gold and purple flames across the sky, George looked at Dream and wished he had said something sooner. 

“My pockets,” he said, “I still have some stuff.” 

He rummaged through his own - scrap pieces of raw iron (enough for less than a nugget), a broken stick, some dust and a weird purple carrot the size of his finger fell to the snow, and when he went to do the same to his back pockets, Dream’s head snapped to him, the mask still slightly out of place and visible eye wild. He patted himself down, pulling out conkers, a small stick, and something George recognised.

“Is that-” he asked.

“Glowstone,” Dream said, then began to laugh, “It’s glowstone. Oh thank goodness, it’s glowstone.”

George had to use his own red hands to pry apart Dream’s blue fingers to get a better look, and nestled inside his palm was one of those egg-shaped pebbles filled with golden sand that he had seen so long ago, the thing that he thought belonged to a horrific monster (and to be fair, George still didn't really know what Dream was, even if he was friendly). Gently, like the flame from Dream’s burner in the time before, it glowed just enough to spill light through his fingers, but not enough to light the snow below them. 

They stood there a moment, George’s wet breath fanning out between them in a fine cloud, and the surface of the glowstone caught it in condensation. Dream’s other hand snaked around George’s waist, and they stood there with the stone between them, just marvelling at their saviour as the dust inside it shifted and moved slightly when Dream twitched. Dream closed his eyes and rested his masked forehead against George’s bare one, just holding him close. 

George shook himself. The sun was just about to dip below the horizon, a thin sliver of yellow being the last part of it to go, and the sky in a violent twilight of lavender and navy, with red as a barrier between the two worlds of day and night. . 

“Is it enough?” he asked, and as the sun finally disappeared the world all at once became colder. 

“I don't know,” Dream said, “do you want to keep moving?” 

George nodded, and with the single glowstone held in Dream’s palm like a talisman to bring them luck or safety, they shuffled through the knee-deep snow further and further south. George clasped his hand around Dream’s own, wishing the glowstone produced some heat for him, but all he could do was walk beside him, marching on The moon was a thin sliver of white in the sky, not bright enough to see clearly with but enough to see the difference between sky and land before them, and after who-knows-how-long of walking, something came into view. 

Seeing it, Dream picked up the pace, his longer legs making short work of the distance between them and whatever it was, and George dragged himself along with aching feet and prickling skin, thankful his glasses protected his eyes from drying out and growing sore, even if it did remind him of what he saw in the caves before. 

Which reminded him of the horrible things. All the horrible, awful things. 

“Lava!” Dream yelled, turning to look at George. 

He pushed forward without George, leaving him around half a metre or so behind, which left George almost out of the light, but at the words George picked up the pace a bit to see for himself, and as Dream promised, the thing they saw glowed with intense heat and in sharp contrast to the snow around it. It still took them an age to get there, through snow and cold and ice, but as they finally reached its edge the cold stopped and the snow thinned, and grass lined the edges of the pool before it turned into a pit of basalt and lava. Dream, still breathing heavily from the exertion of going down the hill and through the snow, fell to the ground, his mask to the sky. George dropped too. 

Their breathing filled the air, George’s coming out in puffs of steam as it cooled immediately and found a place to settle, and Dream didn't protest when George accidently hit him in the stomach with his arm.

“Sorry.” 

There were other issues now, of course. Food and water would be hard to come by in a wasteland like the one they found themselves in, even if the world was almost completely flat, but for the moment, just the moment, they could breathe. 

“God,” George said, wanting to go closer to the lava but not finding it in him to move, “what did I do in whichever past life to deserve this?” 

“Don’t know,” Dream said, and he turned over so that he was face down and closer to the light. George’s arm slipped off him and onto the warm, wet grass. The lava pool must have been wider than the hole they were sitting near, probably reaching underneath them eating away at the stone by the sides. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, knocking his glasses up and onto his forehead. He really didn't want to talk about it, but the anxiousness and feeling of tension seeping out of him made him realise it was probably best to, before they had to run off or fight for their lives, or spend time doing mundane but important tasks to set up a base again.

“Dream,” he said, so soft that he wasn't sure if the other man had heard him, “what was that? Back then?”

“What do you mean?”

“The other me.”

Dream was silent for a long moment, still face down and not looking at George, but as he was about to give up and change the subject, Dream spoke up.

“The only me is me,” he said, echoing the words he said before his disappearance, “I made sure of it, and now I made sure of it for you, too.” 

“But who, what, was it?”

“Did you appear one day? Just not knowing who you were or where you came from?”

George frowned. “Yeah, but my friend, Sapnap, knew what to do so I just followed him.” 

“Well, when I came here I knew what I had to do. I had to find something, but I wasn't sure what, and before I found it I could travel through the night without a torch, just exploring, immune to drowning and cold, but then I found me. He was like you.”

Dream looked up at him then, resting his face against the grass, and his hair looked like snow. His whole body, save for the small flashes of colour that made up his pale skin, looked like snow. Dream continued. 

“He was made of meat, with warm skin and green clothes, and a mask over his face. I didn't really think back then. I didn't know what I looked like, or what I sounded like, but I knew that he was what I was looking for. I didn't need to sleep or eat, so I just watched for a while. Then, when he finally slept for the first time in his bed, I killed him.”

George drew a sharp breath. Dream said nothing further, but turned his face back to the earth and let it rest in the grass, the eyes of the mask invisible. But George’s curiosity peaked in a horrible way, like when you see something dead and you don't want to look, but you also _do._

“What happened then?”

“I got really tired,” his voice was muffled, “and when I woke up, he was still dead, and I remembered and felt and saw so much more. I didn't have the single-minded goal of ‘look for something’ anymore, and I was so hungry. I remember being so, so hungry. I tried to eat the things that he had eaten - milk and bread and potatoes - but I got sick. The only thing he had that I could eat was him, and I hate myself for it now.” 

George swallowed. “Was… was he human?”

“Yeah. yeah he was. Meat with warm skin and green clothes, like I said.” 

“So. So, the other me wanted to kill me. To eat me?”

“To become you. He wanted to take everything you had and put it in his body, memories, feelings, goals, knowledge” Dream shifted, “and I stopped him.” 

George was sitting up now, his body still cold despite the heat coming from the floor below. The moon was still a waning crescent in the sky, but it was lower now and the air was freezing when it didn't come from below. He suspected that the next day might be cloudy, which meant it would be easier to keep in heat at the expense of visibility. 

“Did you know before he came forward? Like, he was in the forest?”

“No. I thought I was the only one like me. I thought I was a parasite, like a virus but only for that one guy. I didn't realise- I didn't know.”

“Is that why you hesitated?”

“Uh-huh. Like if you were the last human ever, and you believed it too, and you came across someone else. That’s why I followed you, too. I was scared.”

“Did you think I was the next thing to take over?”

“I never got the feeling, though. I never wanted to hurt you the way I did with him. I was scared. I don't know how else to say it. I was just so, so scared.” 

They fell into an uneasy silence, listening to the world as the wind picked up slightly and the lava popped beneath them, radiating heat into them. Despite the world still being inhospitable and unwelcoming, and despite the lack of resources they had found so far, just the feeling of understanding it all a little better was comforting to the point that George felt like he could cry. It was still a cruel and dreadful thing that the world had done to them both, more so to Dream than himself, but by the lava, the belief of the other being gone, and the promise of a new beginning on their minds, George found it easier to rest and await the new tomorrow. 

“I’m glad I met you,” Dream said quietly, so quietly that George wasn't entirely sure if he was hearing things. 

George shifted and looked over. Dream still had his face pressed to the ground. 

‘Me too’, he should have said.

‘I want to stay with you’, he might have admitted. 

But perhaps it was cowardice, or exhaustion, overtaking him, because George couldn't bring himself to say anything at all. 

All things ended.

So too, eventually, would the snow. 

South they went, further and further, taking refuge under the first three leafless birch trees they found to set a fire and ease their aches and pains. George’s feet were cold and wet to the point he didn't even know if he was stepping on them or his ankles, and at some point Dream’s hair froze solid and broke off in clumps, becoming short and spiky like icicles. 

But further and further they went, gathering scraps of things and pieces of whatever they could find, until eventually, a dark mass of something hid the horizon line from sight and still they marched onwards. South, south, hungry and hollow. The mass got impossibly closer, and George realised that they were trees, thousands of feet high and shaped like arrows towards the sky. They seemed so far away because they saw the very tips of them before anything else.

Dream clutched his glowstone in his right hand like something he couldn't bear to let go of, it gleamed through the cracks in his fingers and scattered across their path, and three days after leaving the lava pool, they entered the spruce forest. 

With no tools and few items to their name, hunting was not an option, and while George could survive on what few berries remained on the bushes or carrots they found rooted to the floor, Dream had to stay hungry for slightly longer. His teeth were sticking out the front of his mouth like a spider, his skin thinned and blue tinged, as a corpse in the snow would look. They kept their eyes open for civilisation, or any past signs of it, but nothing presented itself. 

On the fourth day since leaving the lava pool, Dream caught sight of something and ran for it. George called to him, but he didn't come back, going too fast and too far for him to follow.

That evening, Dream came back with a dead fox, its white winter coat stained with blood but with Dream looking a little more ‘normal’. They didn't speak to one another that night around the campfire, with Dream eating the fox and George wondering if it would have been him in Dream’s mouth if he hadn't managed to catch it. But George shook himself after the thought. Dream wouldn't hurt him intentionally, in the same way that George wouldn't hurt him, even if their hunger reached the end of its rope. 

Above him, the sky grew dark with the onset of night, and on the horizon he could make out the black shapes of thick, foreboding clouds. With a thread of anxiety, he watched with a cold expression as it came closer, signalling the first snowfall that they would need to live through. The sky’s message was clear - the cold wasn’t done with them yet.

They set their camp near a duo of smaller spruces, with George bent to coax the fire to life with fingers that were numb. When the first flickers of flame bloomed, he fed them carefully, protectively, and as soon as they grew high enough, he shoved his hands toward the offered warmth.

Night came, chill and unforgiving, and the wind whipped through the trees in a violence unseen but felt to the bone. The campfire flickered like a broken redstone lamp, ready to give up the ghost at any moment, and Dream hadn't moved from his attempt at hibernation on the floor. He was no longer shivering - a very bad sign in humans, but an unknown one in whatever Dream was, so he dragged the other man’s prone body closer to the fire when he didn't wake up to at least be a block from the wind. 

He would wake up. One fox wouldn't be enough to comatose him, and since his skin was still tight and unhealthy, he would need to eat again sooner rather than later. 

The fifth, the sixth, the seventh and eighth day, Dream didn't wake up. George strayed further and further from him in search of food, materials, even adventuring into a cave for coal, but he didn't dare go in past the point where daylight didn't reach. Each evening he returned with hope which extinguished each morning, unlike the fire which he kept going constantly, hurrying back when the wind blew in case it went out. He brushed the snow off Dream’s dormant body but left the glowstone in his hand, even though at the sight of it he became envious. The forest floor didn't get covered much, but occasionally a branch in the canopy above would snap, bringing with it pounds of white snow onto the floor with a thunderous crash. 

On the ninth day, something moved behind the trees. 

George could hardly find it in him to move. He was sick of being cold, of being half damp and half starved, of having no walls around him and of having no one to talk to. The trees made for bad conversationalists, and the ice was even worse since it didn't bother to try, and while he could see whatever it was moving in careless, jumbled trudges, he couldn't find it within himself to look at it directly. 

It was probably something ghastly. The new normal. 

So he waited, and waited, and eventually the thing moving stopped somewhere behind him. He didn't move, instead waiting to see if it would just go ahead and kill him already. 

“George?” 

Head snapping to the noise, he felt almost dizzy, faint, too pained to not know if he was hallucinating or if salvation had come at last. 

“Sapnap?”

Brown eyes, dark hair, and a massive, warm hug greeted him, scooping him off the floor and holding him tightly, and Sapnap’s breaths fanned out over the thin material on his shoulders as he laughed with pure joy. George blinked behind his glasses, his hands numb, shaking. He forced himself to move and hug his friend back. 

“God, dude, I thought you were dead.” Sapnap said into his shoulder, somewhere between another laugh and a sob, still not pulling back from the hug.

He felt like every effort he had been putting in so far burst and had flown away, and he sunk into Sapnap’s arms, pulling them both to kneel on the cold, hard floor together. 

“I thought I was,” George said, his voice rough from disuse, “I thought I was already dead.” 


	6. Epilogue: Born with a Wild Heart, I will be Granted Eternal Life

As it turned out, tree-people hibernated. 

They dragged his half-frozen body into Sapnap’s house with little fanfare, not caring enough to brush the snow off before entering and bending as little of his body as possible in case there were adverse effects after being on ice for so long. His limbs were still and difficult to move anyway, the same temperature as the world outside, which thawed in little beads of moisture soon after burying him in blankets.

When George first pulled off his mask, his face was so screwed with cold that he put it back on almost immediately, but after stealing Sapnap’s bedroom and lighting the fireplace, his body slowly but surely warmed and became looser, spreading out and taking up more room on the bed. It seemed, then, that they would have to find a different place to sleep.

George didn't let go of Sapnap that first night, holding his head against the other man’s chest and squeezing his eyes closed as if to forget all the things he’d seen, and Sapnap, as if he understood what George had been through, just petted his back and held on. Sapnap forced George to leave Dream alone for the time being, given how his friend looked close to death himself, and forced him to join him against the furnaces in the other room.

“It’s just me here,” he explained, “and you and your friend now, too. Something went off in the old world, like a piece of dynamite or something. I haven't seen anyone else, but I guess they could be somewhere.” 

“Did you make the house?”

“Partly. It was broken and I fixed it, apart from the bit eaten by moss. Lots of long days and nights.” 

“Did you go out in the dark?” George felt anxious asking it, just thinking about what might have happened if Sapnap hadn't known or noticed it if something was out there.

“Yeah,” he said, “It gets really dark in the forest at night, and sometimes things spawn but it’s not too bad. Just cold, a bit spooky. Nothing I can’t handle, I’m a big boy.”

“Did-” George cut himself off, but Sapnap was looking at him now, “I’m going to sound dumb.”

“Go for it. I love being dumb. You should know that it’s my favourite hobby.” 

George’s mouth twitched at the attempt at humour, but the solemness didn’t leave him. “Did being in darkness hurt you?”

“No, just standard old darkness. Why? What was your old world like?” 

George swallowed. The fire crackled and Dream’s body didn't move, but as if Sapnap could tell what he was thinking, he asked, “was it something to do with him? He didn't hurt you, did he?”

“No, no. He, uh. He basically saved my life. Not basically. He did.”

Sapnap’s face was an open book at the best of times, and George had no problem in seeing the demand on his face. _Explain?_

So George settled his nerves with a breath and talked. He talked about the forest and the rain, about waking up and seeing Dream’s mask in the bushes and about him disappearing. He talked about the village, how it was abandoned and about how Dream forgot his mask when George was chopping wood. He talked about hearing things, about seeing things, about falling asleep and finding the door open and about finally meeting him. He repeated the things Dream told him about the woods; about garlic and crocus, about horse-chestnuts and cornus and poison ivy. He talked about wielding a stick like a sword, as if he and Dream were children playing make-believe rather than training to fight a real threat, and about whittling axes and pickaxes to sharp points, about him disappearing. 

He talked about being too scared to leave the house. He talked about the nights he spent pressed to the glass of the window, wide eyed with worry as if the darkness was able to reach through it to get to him. He described the feeling of hunger, deep and unsettling, sinking deeper and deeper into him like a stone, or a burrowing creature that he didn’t want.

And then he stopped for breath.

The cave, the iron, the movement, the noises.

Breathe. 

The smelting, the axe, the glint of glass, and-

Sapnap looked pale. 

“Another you?”

“An evil one, yeah.”

“What did he want?”

“It wanted to kill me and replace me.”

“What the fuck.”

And then George went on, about Dream appearing, about their incomprehensible conversation, about the knife, the blood, the water. Then darkness. And finally he talked about the brightness of snow, the travel southwards and the lava. Then about walking for days on end, and the grim and bitter act of survival against a world that wanted them dead, and finally, about Dream. About who, what, he was.

Sapnap was silent for the rest of George’s conversation, never interrupting but nodding occasionally in a way that made George wish he actually understood without having to go through the same things, and then when he had finished talking, he sat with both hands in his lap and waited for Sapnap to say something. 

“So he became the person he killed,” Sapnap said, but his voice didn't sound too frightened. 

“I think so. He didn't have a choice, apparently.”

“Do you…” Sapnap trailed off, his face worried, “do you think there’s one of me?”

“Have you felt watched so far?”

“No, just a normal experience. No bites in the night, no rustling trees. The strangest thing I've seen so far is you and him around that campfire. Other than a fox holding a shoe in its mouth.” 

“Then I don't know. I really, really don't.”

Sapnap seemed to accept the answer, and he adjusted the hold on George to be tighter. 

“Here’s hoping not,” he said, and they remained quiet for the rest of the night. 

Dream breathed in and out steadily, his hand still curled around the glowstone piece as he lay stretched out and warm. He occasionally shifted to roll over or move his leg in his sleep, but only did so after three or four days in Sapnap’s house. He would probably be waking up mid-winter for food, since he hadn't had a chance to stock up before falling asleep, and even though he was fine, just asleep, George stayed with him.

Sapnap often came too, sitting on the chair he dragged in the first time because sitting with him and Dream on the bed was, apparently, ‘I don't know, implying something’. George couldn't find it in him to care, and took to lying on the bed in stride. It was just another part of his life now, he guessed. 

Eventually he did take off the mask, too, or really Dream removed it himself after rubbing his face into the pillow for about twenty minutes straight. There was something else to focus on after that point, no longer having to listen to his breathing, George could watch his face instead. It was smoothed out now, fuller looking, and more alive.

His eyes didn't open for a long time, but then one week the weather got warmer. 

Snowdrops peaked their heads out first, emerging from the thinning snow with green stems and fresh smelling flowers, and then the birds flew overhead through the gaps in the trees, calling their return the whole while. Sapnap said the fish returned to the river further west, and that the ice had melted from on top so they could try and reel them in. They no longer had to rely on stray boar for food, or even the foxes when times got desperate, and George took great pride in the leeks and chard he had planted, which sprouted for the first time when the snow melted. Sapnap had made fun of him for making the garden in the middle of winter, but in a matter of weeks he was seeing results, so it hardly mattered. 

And one evening when George was sharpening an axe and Sapnap was out collecting saplings, Dream twitched on what was now his bed, his foot rolling from side to side and his head moving to look off the side of the bed. George held his breath, waiting, watching, and he felt his heart beat faster. 

His hair had grown back slightly from when it had frozen off in the winter, reaching his ears again and turning a soft green colour, the same as the budding leaves on birch trees. His clothes, somehow, had become a light green too. His skin was no longer the sickly white of snow, and looking at him didn't remind George of when he was half buried in snow anymore. But as he watched, pausing his hand movements, Dream looked at him and smiled gently. 

George couldn't help it - he grinned, because Dream’s eyes were green in spring. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!   
> Comments and kudos and bookmarks and whatever else really are appreciated. They inspire me to write and while one comment might not seem like much, I keep coming back to read them whenever I need to motivate myself. they mean the world to me. They really do. 
> 
> This might be the last thing I post before going off to university again, and so my next post in the 'Dream team au' series might be delayed, I am indeed working on something else (yes.... already). 
> 
> Until next time, take care, good luck, and sleep tight!

**Author's Note:**

> Ya boi did it again. 20k in a week. What a world to live in. 
> 
> In all seriousness, the responses to my other works so far have been incredible, and it was the main motivator in getting this fic up and running so. quickly, so thank you so much to the people who have read my other works and left comments/kudos. In addition to this being my 80th work on AO3, it's also the fic that tipped my New Year's resolution over the edge - I've written 100k in a year. I did it last year by the skin of my teeth, and I'm proud of the fact that I achieved it so easily this year. This is also the work that puts me at over 300k on this website in total, which... is insane. Absolutely insane. I cannot say thank you enough :) 
> 
> As always, if you did enjoy this please don't hesitate to leave comments/bookmarks/kudos, as they really do mean the world to me. 
> 
> Thank you again, thank you, thank you! 
> 
> This fic was inspired by Don't Starve, The Long Dark, and a wonderful fic by Yikes (CoralFlower) called 'You lit a fire in my soul' : https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628510/chapters/59500996
> 
> I don't support the shipping of real life people, which is why this piece is set in an AU based more so on their personas rather than them as irl people. As far as I'm currently aware, Dream, George and Sapnap are fine with fanfiction being written about them at this time, but if shipping content is considered incorrect by the creators in the future, or just fanfiction at all, this work will be deleted. The last thing I want to do is offend them or make them uncomfortable.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr: @turtle-ier  
> Find me on Twitter: @Turtle_ier


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